I know, I know, Novak still deserves pillorying for his outing of Valerie Plame.
But from time to time, he proves useful. The same catty instinct that led him to play shill for Rove's smear strategy leads him, from time to time, to play shill in intra-party republican spats.
This article on the Iraq reconstruction is one of those times.
Among other goodies, he reveals this email, from one senior civilian in Iraq to another:
'My opinion is that CPA (the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority) is a living breathing [obscenity]. It is beyond negligent or even criminal. It is tragic in the Greek sense.'
Quick, someone write Instapundit, et al, and let them know there are traitors running reconstruction in Iraq.
In fact, Novak further undermines the claims that we're getting a biased view of Iraq. In fact, the good news was exactly what we suspected all along: BS.
The Bush administration has spent a lot of time saying how well things have gone in Iraq, contending the happy truth has been obscured by negative news media coverage. This is privately described by officials as the 'smoke and mirrors' technique.
Big surprise.
Then there's the doozy that hasn't gotten coverage from other sources:
Esteemed though he is as a public servant, Bremer lacks experience administering large complex organizations. Consequently, more than seven months after taking over Baghdad, two deputies are coming aboard to run the country:
Exit Jay Garner, now exit (or be relegated to irrelevance) Jerry Bremer. The good news is, one of these guys actually speaks Arabic! Novel idea, no?
There're more goodies in the article, including a description of Powell as "uncharacteristingly gloomy" (not that I wish that on him, but perhaps he'll finally realize what hell BushCO is unleashing) and an assertion that one of the new guys is throwing off the "old deceptive PR practices."
Novak writes the article, I think, to spread optimism over the capture of Saddam. He might be right--these new guys sound more competent than anything BushCo have yet sent Babylon's way. But amid the glee, Novak lets his mouth do what he characteristically does--run rampant. And in the process, he plants a few goodies.